Uk politics

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Now Salmond can begin his battle for indepedence

From our UK edition

After all the carry-on with the new Scottish Parliament building, they may have to rebuild it yet again to accommodate Alex Salmond’s head. Never the smallest object, it will have swelled dangerously today – and (I hate to say it) deservedly. This was his victory. Only Smart Alec can pitch simultaneously to the left and the right, and get away with it. “The SNP has become the conservative party of Scotland,” a banker friend emails from Edinburgh. “Almost every Scot I know who is a conservative in London is now strongly pro-SNP”. Salmond talks about low tax and enterprise, etc, while vowing to keep state spending up at Soviet levels. My gran once summed up his debating technique. “If he knows the answer, he gloats.

Peter Hoskin

From the archives: Nick Clegg and Margaret Thatcher

From our UK edition

Here's a game of Spot the Difference for you. Compare Nick Clegg's comments today — "…there are some very strong memories of what life was like under Thatcherism in the 1980s, and somehow a fear that that's what we're returning to…" — with the latest shot from The Spectator archives: Can Nick Clegg sing the blues? Fraser Nelson, The Spectator, 13 March 2010 Nick Clegg’s office already has a Downing Street feel to it. Since becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats, he has had it redecorated so that portraits of old party leaders hang on the staircase up to his room, as portraits of former prime minsters do in No. 10. It starts plausibly enough, with portraits of Palmerston, Gladstone and Asquith.

James Forsyth

Lessons for the Lib Dems

From our UK edition

Chris Huhne’s behaviour still has everyone at Westminster talking. Earlier in the week, senior Liberal Democrats were saying that once the voting had happened, Paddy Ashdown and the party president Tim Farron would communicate the party’s anger at the behaviour of the No campaign, while the party’s Cabinet ministers began to rebuild relations with their coalition colleagues. Vince Cable, for example, has been far more restrained today than he was during the campaign, blaming AV’s defeat on the failings of the Yes campaign not the No campaign’s tactics. But Huhne either didn’t get these instructions or has chosen to ignore them.

Piotr Brzezinski

The AV ‘stabbed in the back’ myth

From our UK edition

The referendum results haven’t even been announced yet, but the Yes campaign’s myth-making machine is already in full swing. Within moments of the polls closing, Simon Hughes took to the airwaves to dismiss a No vote as a "hollow victory" because of our "false facts and false figures". Just as some people on the left never came to terms with losing to Thatcher – blaming the SDP instead – Yes supporters are already peddling the idea that they only lost because the No campaign fought dirty. So let’s set the record straight on the supposed ‘lies and distortions’ of the last few months: We did not say the BNP would win seats under AV: The Yes campaign’s not-so-clever tactic has been to deny an accusation we never made.

Peter Hoskin

Another disappointment for Ed Miliband

From our UK edition

The final tally from Wales is just in — and it's a minor disappointment, on a day of many disappointments, for Ed Miliband. There was a time when Labour looked set for a comfortable overall majority in the country. But it isn't to be. They did gain four seats, yet that leaves them one short of an overall majority. Now, with thirty seats — exactly half of those in the Welsh Assembly — they will have to make do with a tighter, working majority. Far from terrible, but not the red groundswell that Miliband might have hoped for. The problem for Miliband is the overall picture: a precarious sort of victory in Wales; solid, but unspectacular, results in England; an evisceration in Scotland; and, most likely, defeat for AV.

Hamish Macdonell

Salmond’s next stop: testing the Act of Union

From our UK edition

Fresh from his astonishing victory in Holyrood, Alex Salmond has declared his next stage is an independence referendum. This is scoffed at: technically he has no powers to do so and a maximum of a third of Scots back independence. But it's a brave man who'd bet against Alex Salmond right now, and there are many reasons to take seriously the prospect of Scottish independence. Here are some.   1) Scotland is making a mockery out of received wisdom. A few weeks ago, Labour was cruising towards victory. When the Scottish Parliament was designed, the prevailing wisdom suggested that the SNP could never win a majority because the electoral system was rigged against them. Even the SNP believed this.

Jonathan Jones

Clegg versus Huhne, at a local level

From our UK edition

While the Lib Dems lost control of Nick Clegg's city of Sheffield to Labour, losing 9 councillors, they won every seat up for election Chris Huhne's constituency of Eastleigh. They even took Labour's only council seat in the borough. It is worth remembering that the Lib Dems are waging very different types of battle in these two areas: against Labour in Sheffield and mainly the Tories in Eastleigh. Of all the Cabinet members, Huhne ran probably the most anti-Tory campaign in 2010, and many predicted a strong backlash against the Lib Dems in Eastleigh for going into coalition with them, perhaps with Labour supporters refusing to back them tactically over the Tories. On today's evidence, at least, this does not seem to be the case.

James Forsyth

Three points from a remarkable night

From our UK edition

This has been a remarkable election night. To my mind, there are three big stories out of the polls. First, the George Osborne masterminded campaign for a new Conservative majority is on track. AV, barring some shock, has been defeated and the Conservative vote has held up remarkably well in the English local elections. Indeed, right now the Tories have actually gained councilors in England. Add to this that the next election, if the coalition lasts to 2013, will be fought on new constituency boundaries that are more favourable to the Tories and things are looking promising for the party.    The coalition looks secure. Even after last night's drubbing, the Lib Dem leadership is not considering leaving government.

Fraser Nelson

Salmond’s victory

From our UK edition

When I stood down as political editor of The Scotsman five years ago, the country looked to be forever Labour – even if they called in Salmond for some Puck-style light relief. Not so now. The SNP seems to have pulled off a minor revolution. Scotland wakes to find Labour MSPs being toppled from former strongholds like Glasgow Shettleston – the city itself is now almost all SNP. The BBC say Alex Salmond is heading for a majority, and in a Holyrood which was designed to make it almost impossible for any party so to do. Salmond is already pledging that his next mission is an independence referendum. The Lib Dems have taken what seems to be a punishment beating for coalition with the Tories in Westminster.

Thursday

James Forsyth

It’s all over bar the counting

From our UK edition

The polls have now closed tonight. But there’s no exit poll and no results are expected for a few hours yet. Indeed, I’m almost tempted to say we could do with some of those much talked about electronic counting machines. We are, though, already seeing recriminations over the AV vote. Paddy Ashdown, who is in very fiery form on Question Time, has already told The Guardian that ‘So far the coalition has been lubricrated by a large element of goodwill and trust. It is not any longer.’ In an attempt to bring the temperature down, a no gloating order has come down from Tory high command. Expect to hear an awful lot in the next few days about what the Lib Dems bring to the coalition.

David Blackburn

Will there be TV debates at the next election?

From our UK edition

One might have thought that the TV debates would become an immovable fixture in British general elections. But apparently not. Speaking at the launch of a new study of the 2010 election a couple of nights ago, Adam Boulton said that it was far from certain that they will feature at the next election. Will Straw tweeted the news at the time, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks as attention has been diverted elsewhere. Apparently, broadcasters and the parties have reached an impasse at this early stage in the electoral cycle. The Conservatives are reluctant to recommit themselves to something that they believe contributed to their failure to win a majority.

Peter Hoskin

Boris takes on Dave over London’s strikes

From our UK edition

The Telegraph's James Kirkup has already highlighted Boris's suggestion, yesterday, that the coalition is being "lily-livered" over strike laws. But, as there has been no let up in the Mayor's rhetoric today, we really ought to mention it here too. "The government needs to get a move on," is how he put it this morning, in reference to the sort of legislation that might hinder the RMT and their persistent Tube strikes. Boris's latest broadsides against the coalition are all the more notable because he and Cameron were united, arm in arm, against the unions only a few months ago. In a joint piece for the Sun in January, they raged that, "you can try to drag this country back to the 1970s, to a time when militants held our country to ransom, but you will not succeed.

James Forsyth

Calamity may lead to concessions for Clegg

From our UK edition

If the expected happens today, the political debate will rapidly move to whether Cameron should offer some concessions to Clegg to bolster his position. I hear there are two camps in Downing Street on this question with Steve Hilton a particularly ardent advocate of the no more concessions line.   Hilton’s position may surprise some but makes sense when you consider how his public service reform programme has, as Ben Brogan writes today, already been diluted for political reasons.    My current expectation is that there won’t be many concessions to Clegg. One well placed Tory told me last night that "Clegg picked the question and the date. He can have no complaints.

Peter Hoskin

The ghost of David Miliband hovers over Ed’s election results

From our UK edition

While the focus remains fixed on the dramas of Coalitionville, it's worth remembering that today's votes are meaningful for Ed Miliband too. The Labour leader may not be facing the prospect of resignations, nor even outcry, at their various outcomes. But this is, nonetheless, the first major electoral moment of his leadership. He might well be judged on it. In which case, much will depend on the extent to which Labour advances in England have already been priced into the electoral calculus. If the party's footsoldiers regard sweeping gains — of perhaps around 1,000 seats — as some sort of default, then attention may turn instead to the turnaround in favour of the SNP in Scotland, and to the likely defeat for Yes to AV.

Matthew Elliott

Make sure you vote NO today

From our UK edition

Today I urge everyone who believes in our democracy to vote ‘no’ to the unfair and expensive Alternative Vote (AV) system.   The recent polls have been encouraging but you must remember that there is no turnout threshold today – any complacency and the UK could sleepwalk into a heavily flawed voting system that we would struggle to get rid of.   Instead of voting being clear, simple and effective like our current system, the Alternative Vote’s complex counting process breaks the principle of ‘One Person, One Vote’ which is the foundation of our democracy.

Peter Hoskin

Election day is here at last

From our UK edition

The usual form, on mornings such as these, is to put up a post setting the scene for the elections ahead – although, really, there's not much more to add than was said yesterday. Apart from a readers' survey in the Metro this morning, the only poll to hit after yesterday's ICM bombshell is a YouGov one for the Sun, and it gives No a 20-point lead. Even given the complications of turnout and geography, it looks as though Team No are heading for a straightforward victory. As if to underline his increased personal involvement in the campaign, and perhaps tie himself that little bit closer to the eventual result, David Cameron has not one, but two, comment pieces in the papers today – in the Mail and in the Sun.

Wednesday

Blair Gibbs

The drug infestation in our prisons

From our UK edition

Despite the focus on the government’s controversial plans to reduce the prison population, the troubled Prison Service continues to cause headaches for Ministers in another way — by failing to get on top of the security problems plaguing the estate In the 1990s, when Michael Howard was in Ken Clarke’s position, the concern of ministers was escaping inmates. The Prison Service has made huge strides on this, despite ongoing issues with the open prison estate and day-release of some inmates. But now the ever-present problem is lax internal security and especially drug-infestation. The jailing this week, for two years, of a prison officer based at Feltham Young Offenders Institution is just one example of the problem.

Jonathan Jones

Your guide to tomorrow’s elections

From our UK edition

In light of ICM's latest poll, Lib Dems might be relieved to hear that tomorrow isn't all about the AV referendum. But it's a meagre sort of relief: they're facing a drubbing in the local elections too. We've put together a quick guide to those elections, as well as those in Scotland and Wales, so that CoffeeHousers know what to look out for, and Lib Dems know what to fear. Here it is: England The main question hovering over England's local elections is: how big will Labour's gains be? There are around 9,400 seats up for contention, of which the Conservatives currently hold about 5,000; Labour, 1,600; and the Lib Dems, 1,900.

James Forsyth

New ICM poll has No 36 — thirty six — points ahead

From our UK edition

Tonight’s ICM poll is even worse for the Yes campaign than last night’s ComRes poll. The poll, in tomorrow’s Guardian, has Yes heading for defeat by a margin of more than two-to-one and in every single region of the country. The turnout adjusted numbers are No 68, Yes 32. If these last two polls are accurate, and it is difficult to estimate what the turnout will be tomorrow, it will be a monumental humiliation for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Defeat on this scale would take Lib Dem nervousness about what the coalition is doing to the party’s brand to a whole new level. Indeed, its effect would be so destabilising that it would be hard to predict how this punch-drunk party would react.

Lloyd Evans

A session of Dickens, Ernie the Milkman and Jack Dromey

From our UK edition

There was an eerie, eve-of-battle calm about today’s PMQs. The real bust-up isn’t due till Friday. The votes will be in, AV will be out, Clegg will be down and Huhne will be calculating his next move. Before today’s session everyone expected Labour to co-ordinate an ambush and try to light Cameron’s ever-combustible fuse. But the chamber was under-populated and the opposition hadn’t troubled to devise a battle-plan. Miliband carried the fight to the PM. With an assured forensic performance he methodically built up the case against Cameron as a promise-breaker, a question-dodger and a budget-slasher. Cameron dealt with the assault by absorbing rather than repulsing it.